The Cramps: A Period Piece | Review

Poster for The Cramps: A Period Piece

Upon hearing the title The Cramps: A Period Piece, one can expect a film with its tongue firmly planted within its cheek. What can also be expected from writer/director Brooke Cellars’ quirky indie horror gem is sincerity, laughs, and an immaculate 1960s aesthetic. Influenced by the works of John Waters, Mario Bava, and Frederico Fellini, The Cramps puts a campy horror spin on endometriosis, a medical issue that many women deal with, and does so with a lot of heart. 

The film follows Agnes Applewhite (Lauren Kitchen), a young woman living with her strict, sanctimonious mother and cold-as-ice sister (Harlie Madison). Against the wishes of her mother (Brooklyn Woods), Agnes gets a job as a shampoo girl at a local beauty salon. As she begins her new journey of self-discovery, debilitating cramps begin to manifest themselves in monstrous ways.

The Cramps is a meticulously crafted homage to classic horror cinema from the technicolor era. Cellars filmed it on 35mm, which goes a long way in keeping with the ‘60s setting. The set design is tremendously detailed, and each set has a respective vibe. Mother Applewhite’s house is a dark, stuffy environment to match the mood set by Agnes’s oppressively conservative mother. The hair salon is full of vibrancy in stark contrast, a place where Agnes becomes more confident and self-assured with the help of some very eccentric characters. 

The salon is owned and operated by Luverne Lancaster (Martini Bear), a drag queen with a blunt mouth and a devil-may-care attitude–she loudly and proudly calls a customer a cunt within moments of being onscreen. Martini Bear almost runs away with the film entirely, but Luverne’s two staff members are as memorable as she is. Teddy Teaberry (Wicken Taylor) is a pink-haired Satanist with a heart of gold, and Holiday Hitchcocker (Michelle Malentina) is an easily distracted stylist with a bad habit of setting clients’ hair on fire. 

As Agnes deals with verbal abuse from her mother and sister, indifferent doctors who won’t listen to her about her own body, and first love going horribly wrong, the salon becomes a safe haven. The themes of found family are explored with a charming sincerity and a great sense of humor. As personal and serious as the subject matter is, Cellars inserts plenty of comic relief, for example, when a rival hair salon challenges Luverne and her crew to a battle of beauty at an upcoming pageant. It’s just the kind of ridiculous, silly rivalry that you want out of a movie about a bunch of catty hair salon employees. 

While the supporting cast is tremendous, the movie belongs to Lauren Kitchen, who gives a grounded performance as Agnes. Even when she’s chatting with the mannequin in her bedroom and playing to the camera like a stage performer, Kitchen manages to make Agnes feel like a real person. It’s an incredible physical performance, where her posture, body language, and demeanor change according to her location and escalating confidence as the film goes on. Kitchen is a talent to keep an eye on. 

Of course, this is also a horror film, and the movie doesn’t skimp on the blood. Cellars conceptualizes endometriosis as a gelatinous monster that comes out of Agnes and kills those around her. In terms of body horror, it’s more The Blob (1958) than The Substance, which is perfect in the context of the ‘60s setting. The effects are still appropriately goopy as the blobby clot breaks down and digests anyone who would bring harm to Agnes. 

From the avant-garde opening dream sequence to the heartbreaking final shot, each frame is a loving homage to the technicolor horror with a genuine heart at the center. While Cellars wears her influences on her sleeve, she also imbues her film with a tremendous amount of warmth that isn’t typically seen in Waters or Bava’s works. You’ll be hard pressed to find a film even remotely like it. The Cramps: A Period Piece is a future cult classic, and well-deserving of it.